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Google Tensor Processing Units – version 4

Google Tensor Processing Units – version 4

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I’ve written about Google’s custom silicon TPUs before (Google’s Tensor Processing Units – v1).

One of the big reasons for Google and others web services to develop their own custom chips is that general purpose CPUs are flexible but typically need a lot of power. That power costs a lot of money in electricity bills and cooling costs in huge data centers. So, why buy chips with lots of stuff you don’t need when you can build your own – and save millions of dollars a year in a data center with lower cooling and power costs?

In just a 6 years, Google has managed to design and build 4 ever increasingly capable AI data center chips. They had somewhat humble beginnings – but they are becoming increasingly powerful. Now they have just published information about TPU version 4.

What is this new chip capable of?

  • a nearly 10x leap forward in scaling ML system performance over TPU v3 
  • boosting energy efficiency ~2-3x compared to contemporary ML DSAs, and 
  • reducing CO2e as much as ~20x over these DSAs in typical on-premise data centers

Even crazier, it’s the first system to use purely optical switching.

TPU v4 is the first supercomputer to deploy a reconfigurable OCS (optical circuit switching). OCSes dynamically reconfigure their interconnect topology and are much cheaper, lower power, and faster than Infiniband.  The figure below shows how an OCS works, using two MEMs arrays. No optical to electrical to optical conversion or power-hungry network packet switches are required, saving power.

Add to this, the newest version claims to be 1.2-1.7x faster and 1.9x more efficient than nVidia A100 chips.

Worth a read.

Links:

Police chases in Brazil

Police chases in Brazil

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This crazy motorcycle chase from São Paulo, Brazil looks like something out of a recent James Bond movie.

My favorite part is when the cop catches up to them and just laughs. Darn kids!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQGOMhX9Wdo
Waking up to Pure Imagination

Waking up to Pure Imagination

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This is probably the best arrangement of the song “Pure Imagination” sung by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Here it is performed in 2017 as the morning wake-up call for the Jersey Surf professional marching band. The sublime harmonics of the euphoniums, balance of the horns, and acoustics is absolutely magical. If I was woken up to this, I would think I was waking up in heaven.

Jersey Surf is a world class drum and marching corps. There is the huge DCI (Drum Corps International) competition every year in Indianapolis and my guess is this is the band spending the night hosted in the local gym at George Washington Technical High School in Indy where this was shot.

Update Early 2023:

Man, this thing has taken off. There were videos taken from both sides as it turns out. Left side and Right side (original). This person combines the two so you get them in stereo!

Update Nov 2023:

Here’s another version that was taken in 2023. The trumpet chokes a bit, but the rest is perfect.

Here’s a music transcript – but it’s all synthesized.

Riven’s holographic imager

Riven’s holographic imager

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Riumplus was inspired by the imagers in the game Riven (the sequel to Myst) to create his own working andotrope for Mysterium 2023.

Here’s the imager from the game:

And here’s his version:

It works by rotating two tablet/phone inside a cylinder that has slits cut in it so you only see the faces of the tablet directly facing you. He has a great writeup on how he created the device, filed a patent for it, and as has a video:

Layoffs in 2023

Layoffs in 2023

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There’s been a lot of layoffs in high tech this year – just over 200,000 workers. Combine that with companies changing direction due to higher interest rates, canceling projects, and the 150,000 or so tech workers let go in 2022 and that’s a lot of people looking for new roles.

Jonathan Lyon writes up the 12 lessons he learned during his most recent layoff and landing a new position. Some I had heard before, others were new. Worth a read if you are facing an involuntary, or voluntary, job switch.

Japan’s interesting work culture

Japan’s interesting work culture

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Interesting video on strange, unwritten work rules of Japanese companies.

Here’s the list:

  1. You must hand-write your resume
  2. You cannot take your suit off – even when it’s hot (but the boss can)
  3. You must attend after-work drinking parties if invited
  4. You should be at work 1 hour (to 30 minutes) before the start of work
  5. You must attend and participate in the cho rei morning greeting.
  6. You cannot fire someone because they can’t do the job. (see the window tribe)
  7. Unpaid overtime is common and you’re expected to do it (though becoming less common)
  8. You do not leave on time (also becoming less common).
Workshop Nation robot

Workshop Nation robot

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I like his thinking: we already have enough computers – what we need is more personality. Where are the kind of robots we saw as kids? C3PO, R2D2, the robot from Lost in Space. So, he hacked an Alexa into an old TV with a set of eyes and gives his robot a little of the personality he was looking for.

Mondo Croquet and Mad Hatter Party

Mondo Croquet and Mad Hatter Party

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I ran across these guys in the park when I moved here 20 years ago. It looked like a Mad Hatter dinner party, so I pulled over. There were all these strange folks dressed in wacky clothes and playing croquet with bowling balls and sledgehammers. I watched for a bit and enjoyed talking and learning about these folks playing something they called Mondo Croquet.

Mondo Croquet is regular croquet, but with bowling balls and sledgehammers. I noticed that they had a small pile of cracked open bowling balls, so it’s definitely a contact sport. It is also carried out with players wearing costumes and stylings of a late 1800’s English lawn or mad hatter style party.

It was started by Stephen Peters in 1997. Read more here in The Oregonian.

Anyway, they’ll be having their FREE annual 2023 Mondo Croquet World Championships and Mad Hatter Picnic this Sunday, July 30, 2023 from noon–4pm in the north park blocks.

Pull on your British Lawn Whites, your Ham Sammmich costume, your Spock ears or perhaps just your sunglasses and get ready to smack some balls.

What to bring?

  • something cold to drink
  • a chair to set a spell
  • a snack to share with the Mad Hatter Picnic

If you have one, a sledgehammer is handy, but we come equipped with enough hammers and bowling balls so no worries. In fact, you can just come and watch if you’d like.

We do suggest you can turbo-up your fun by dressing appropriately, or appropriately inappropriate. Need some suggestions? Check out past photos: https://mondocroquet.com/photos/